A huge congratulations from the Frontline Club to member Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger for their incredible success at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Their documentary Restrepo won the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Comptetition.

Restrepo is an incredible documentary that chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley – considered one of the most dangerous postings of the war. The film puts politics aside to get to the heart of the experience these soldiers face over the course of a year.

This year’s judges for the Grand Jury U.S. Documentary Comptetition were filmmakers Greg Barker, Dayna Goldfine, Morgan Spurlock, Ondi Timoner and Wired senior editor Nancy Miller.

Restrepo wasn’t the only film with a British director to do well at Sundance, Enemies of the People by Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath won the Special Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary Competition and Lucy Walker’s win for Wasteland added to her incredible achievement of having two documentaries at the festival, the other being Countdown to Zero.

My review of Restrepo for The Documentary Blog and Sundance coverage can be found here.

I also want to add a congratulations to the filmmakers of films shown at the club nominated for this year’s Oscars. China’s Unnatural Disaster: the Tears of Sichuan Province has been nominated in the Documentary Short category. Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill kindly came and gave a wonderful Q&A a few weeks ago and we wish them the best of luck on March 7th.

Burma VJ and The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers are both nominated in the Documentary Feature category, congratulations to filmmakers Anders Østergaard, Lise Lense-Møller, Judith Elrlich and Rick Goldsmith.

 For more information about Restrepo, the website is here.

Full List of Awards in the Sundance Documentary Competitions:

U.S. Documentary Competition

Grand Jury Prize  – Restrepo
Directed by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington

Special Jury Prize – Gasland
Directed by Josh Fox

Directing Award – Leon Gast for Smash his Camera

Cinematography Award – Laura Poitras and Kirsten Johnson for The Oath

Editing Award – Penelope Falk for Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Audience Award – Waiting for Superman
Directed by Davis Guggenheim

World Cinema Documentary Competition

Grand Jury Prize – The Red Chapel
Directed by Mads Brügger

Special Jury Prize – Enemies of the People
Directed by Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath

Directing Award – Christian Frei for Space Tourists

Cinematography Award – Kate McCullough and Michael Lavelle for His & Hers

Editing Award – Joëlle Alexis for A Film Unfinished

Audience Award – Wasteland
Directed by Lucy Walker

It wasn’t a surprise to see Burma VJ on there which we screened at The Frontline Club a few months ago and I’m very glad to see another two films that will be shown at the club soon, The Most Dangerous Man in America –  which we will be showing on the 29th November (booking link is here) and Sergio which we will be screening in the new year. This means our last two Sunday screenings of the year are both on the Oscar shortlists.

This Sunday we are showing the incredible China’s Unnatural Disaster which is nominated in the Documentary Shorts category and the filmmakers are flying in for the Q&A. Booking link here.

Surprise omissions from the list are The September Issue, Capitalism: A Love Story, Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner We Live in Public, Tyson, The Way We Get By and Anvil.

The 15 films shortlisted:
* “The Beaches of Agnes,” Agnès Varda, director (Cine-Tamaris)
* “Burma VJ,” Anders Østergaard, director (Magic Hour Films)
* “The Cove,” Louie Psihoyos, director (Oceanic Preservation Society)
* “Every Little Step,” James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, directors (Endgame Entertainment)
* “Facing Ali,” Pete McCormack, director (Network Films Inc.)
* “Food, Inc.,” Robert Kenner, director (Robert Kenner Films)
* “Garbage Dreams,” Mai Iskander, director (Iskander Films, Inc.)
* “Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders,” Mark N. Hopkins, director (Red Floor Pictures LLC)
* “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, directors (Kovno Communications)
* “Mugabe and the White African,” Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey, directors (Arturi Films Limited)
* “Sergio,” Greg Barker, director (Passion Pictures and Silverbridge Productions)
* “Soundtrack for a Revolution,” Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, directors (Freedom Song Productions)
* “Under Our Skin,” Andy Abrahams Wilson, director (Open Eye Pictures)
* “Valentino The Last Emperor,” Matt Tyrnauer, director (Acolyte Films)
* “Which Way Home,” Rebecca Cammisa, director (Mr. Mudd)

You can see the official press release here